Part 1: The Mark

Chapter 1: The Detour

The heat in Los Angeles was different from the heat in Kandahar. In the desert, the heat was dry, honest, and tried to kill you from the outside in. In L.A., the heat was heavy, smelling of exhaust and asphalt, sticking to your skin like a bad memory.

I, Master Sergeant Elias Thorne, adjusted the air conditioning vent in my rental Ford Mustang. I was forty, but my knees felt sixty. I had just landed at LAX three hours ago, fresh off a transport from Germany. I was on leave. Two weeks. Two weeks to remember how to be a civilian. Two weeks to remember how to be a father to my ten-year-old daughter, Lily.

It was Lily’s birthday tomorrow. I had promised her a specific stuffed animal—a purple unicorn she had seen in a catalog months ago. I had struck out at the first two toy stores.

“One more stop,” I muttered to myself, pulling into a strip mall on the edge of Venice Beach. There was a small, cluttered convenience store that also sold “Novelties and Toys” according to the faded sign.

I parked. I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror. The scar running down my left cheek was fading, but my eyes… the eyes never really came back from the sandbox. They were constantly scanning, assessing threats, looking for the glint of a scope or the wire of an IED.

“Relax, Elias,” I told myself. “You’re in California. The only threat here is the traffic.”

I stepped out of the car. The sun was setting, painting the sky in violent shades of orange and purple.

I walked into the store. A bell chimed above the door.

The place smelled of floor wax and stale popcorn. The aisles were narrow, crammed with everything from motor oil to knock-off Barbie dolls.

I walked to the toy aisle in the back. I scanned the shelves. No purple unicorn. Just a sad-looking teddy bear and some plastic trucks.

“Can I help you find something, Sir?”

I turned.

A man was stocking shelves near the cooler. He was tall, wearing a green vest over a long-sleeved shirt. He had a baseball cap pulled low, shadowing his face. He moved with a stiffness I recognized—the stiffness of old injuries.

“Looking for a unicorn,” I said. “Purple. For a ten-year-old.”

“We might have one in the back,” the man said. His voice was raspy, like he had swallowed gravel. “Let me check.”

He reached up to adjust a box on the top shelf. As he did, his sleeve rode up.

Just an inch.

But it was enough.

On the inside of his right forearm, inked in black against pale, scarred skin, was a tattoo.

It wasn’t a generic eagle. It was specific.

A double-headed eagle, clutching a broken spear in one talon and a lightning bolt in the other. The wings were spread wide, but the feathers were stylized to look like daggers.

My heart stopped.

The world narrowed down to that patch of ink. The sounds of the store—the hum of the fridge, the bell on the door—faded into a high-pitched ringing in my ears.

I knew that tattoo. I had designed it.

It was the unit insignia of Vanguard Team. A black-ops ghost squad that officially didn’t exist. There were only six men in the world who had that ink.

Four of them were dead. Killed in an ambush in the Korengal Valley five years ago. An ambush that I had barely survived.

I was the fifth.

And the sixth man… the sixth man was Captain Julian Ross. The man who had led us into that valley. The man who was confirmed KIA (Killed in Action). I had seen his body. I had seen the dog tags.

But the man reaching for the box… he had the mark.

“Sir?” the man asked, sensing my silence. He turned.

He looked at me.

The years had been hard on him. He had a beard now, gray and unkempt. A scar ran across his nose. But I knew the eyes. Steel blue. The eyes of a man who could calculate windage and elevation in a heartbeat.

It was Julian.

He was alive.

Chapter 2: The Ghost

For a second, neither of us moved. We stood there in the aisle of a convenience store, two ghosts staring at each other over a display of potato chips.

“Julian?” I whispered.

The box fell from his hands. It hit the floor with a dull thud.

Julian’s eyes went wide. Panic—raw, primal panic—flashed across his face.

“You’re mistaken,” he said, his voice dropping. “My name is Ben.”

“Don’t lie to me, Cap,” I said, stepping closer. “I saw the ink. Vanguard. We drew that up in a bar in Berlin.”

Julian backed away. He looked at the door. He looked at the counter where an older woman was reading a magazine.

“Elias,” he hissed. “You shouldn’t be here. You need to leave. Now.”

“Leave?” I felt a surge of anger mixed with confusion. “You’re dead, Julian. I went to your funeral. I gave the flag to your mother. What the hell is this?”

“I can’t explain,” Julian said, his eyes darting to the security camera in the corner. “You have to go. If they see you talking to me…”

“Who?”

“The cleaners,” Julian whispered. “They’re always watching.”

“Cleaners?” I frowned. “Julian, are you in trouble? Is this PTSD? Did you desert?”

“I didn’t desert!” Julian grabbed my arm. His grip was iron. “I was erased, Elias. They erased me because I found out about Project Chimera.”

Project Chimera. A rumor. A myth about unauthorized drone strikes used to smuggle heroin. We used to joke about it in the mess hall.

“Chimera is a ghost story,” I said.

“It’s real,” Julian said. “That’s why the ambush happened. It wasn’t the Taliban, Elias. It was a setup. To wipe us out. Because we were getting too close to the supply line.”

I stared at him. It sounded insane. But I remembered the ambush. The intel was wrong. The air support never came. We were pinned down for twelve hours.

“I survived,” Julian said rapidly. “I crawled out. I made it to a village. I realized… if I went back, they’d finish the job. So I swapped tags with a corpse. I went dark.”

“For five years?” I asked. “You let your family grieve? You let us grieve?”

“I protected you!” Julian snapped. “If I came back, they’d kill everyone I touched. Why do you think you’re the only other survivor? Because they think you’re dumb, Elias. They think you’re just a grunt who follows orders. But if they see us together…”

He looked at the window.

A black sedan was pulling slowly into the parking lot.

“Damn it,” Julian whispered. “They found me.”

I looked at the car. Tinted windows. Government plates.

“Is that them?”

“That’s the recon,” Julian said. “The extraction team won’t be far behind.”

He looked at me. “Do you have a weapon?”

“I’m on leave, Julian. I have a rental car and a credit card.”

“Great,” Julian ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. Listen to me. Walk out. Get in your car. Drive away. Forget you saw me. It’s the only way you see your daughter again.”

He knew about Lily.

“I’m not leaving you,” I said. “We’re Vanguard. We don’t leave men behind.”

“There is no Vanguard!” Julian shouted, drawing the attention of the cashier. “There is only dead men and walking targets!”

I pulled out my phone.

“What are you doing?” Julian asked.

“I’m calling it in,” I said. “I still have friends at the Pentagon. General Vance. He’ll listen.”

“Vance signed the order!” Julian grabbed my phone. “Don’t you get it? It goes to the top!”

But my thumb had already hit the speed dial. Not for Vance. For 911.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“This is Master Sergeant Elias Thorne,” I said loudly. “I have located a high-value target at the QuickStop on Venice and 4th. Requesting immediate police assistance. Officer needs help.”

I hung up.

“You idiot,” Julian groaned. “You just rang the dinner bell.”

“The LAPD isn’t part of Chimera,” I said. “We get you into custody. Public record. They can’t disappear you if you’re in the system.”

Julian looked at me with a mixture of pity and horror.

“You really don’t know how deep this goes,” he said.

He reached under the counter and pulled out a shotgun.

The cashier screamed and ducked.

“Julian!” I shouted.

“I’m not going back to a black site, Elias,” he said. “I’d rather die here.”

And then, we heard the sirens.

Chapter 3: The Arrival

It had been exactly five minutes.

I looked out the window.

Five police cars screeched into the parking lot. They didn’t park in a perimeter. They boxed us in.

Officers poured out. But they weren’t wearing standard LAPD blues. They were wearing tactical gear. heavy vests. Helmets. No badges visible.

They weren’t here to arrest a shoplifter. They were here for a siege.

“That was fast,” I muttered.

“They monitor the lines,” Julian said, racking the shotgun. “They flagged your voice print the second you identified yourself.”

“They’re cops,” I said, trying to hold onto my belief in the system.

“Look at their weapons,” Julian said.

I looked. They were carrying military-grade assault rifles. Suppressed.

Police don’t use suppressors for a standard response.

“They’re here to clean house,” Julian said. “No witnesses.”

He looked at the cashier, an old woman named Martha who was shaking behind the counter.

“Get in the back, Martha,” Julian said gently. “Lock the freezer door. Don’t come out.”

Martha ran.

“Elias,” Julian turned to me. “You have a choice. You can walk out there with your hands up. Maybe they’ll buy that you were just a bystander. Maybe they’ll let you go with a warning.”

“And you?”

“I’m going to make a stand.”

I looked at the tactical team advancing on the door. I saw the lead officer raise his hand. He wasn’t holding a megaphone to negotiate. He was signaling a breach.

I looked at Julian. My captain. My brother.

I thought about the ambush in the valley. The way he had dragged me behind a rock when I took a bullet to the leg. The way he had stayed behind to cover our retreat.

He had saved my life.

I walked over to the sporting goods aisle. I grabbed a baseball bat. It was pathetic against rifles, but it was something.

“I’m not leaving,” I said.

Julian smiled. It was the first time I had seen that smile in five years. The smile of a man who knew the odds were impossible, and didn’t care.

“Vanguard,” he said.

“Vanguard,” I replied.

The front glass shattered.

Chapter 4: The Siege of Aisle 4

The first canister came through the window with a hiss. Smoke.

“Masks!” Julian shouted. He grabbed two bandanas from a rack and tossed one to me. I tied it around my face.

They came in through the front. Two tangos. Moving professionally. Scanning sectors.

Julian popped up from behind the counter. BOOM.

The shotgun roared. Ideally, in a movie, the bad guy flies back. In reality, the lead man took the buckshot to his vest. He stumbled, winded, but his armor held.

He raised his rifle.

I threw a can of soup. A heavy can of clam chowder. It wasn’t a grenade, but my aim was true. It hit his helmet with a clang, disorienting him.

Julian fired again. This time lower. The man went down, screaming, clutching his leg.

The second man opened fire. Bullets shredded the display of potato chips, sending foil bags exploding into the air like confetti.

We scrambled back to Aisle 4.

“We need a better position!” I yelled.

“The office,” Julian pointed to the back. “Solid door. Rear exit.”

We moved. I grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall on the way.

We reached the office. Julian kicked the door open. We dove inside.

He slammed it shut and locked it. He pushed a heavy metal desk against it.

“The rear exit is welded shut,” Julian said, checking the back door. “I welded it myself to keep the junkies out.”

“Great,” I panted. “So we’re trapped.”

“Not trapped,” Julian said. He pulled a rug aside, revealing a trapdoor. “Prepared.”

He opened it. A ladder led down into darkness.

“A tunnel?” I asked.

“Storm drain access,” Julian said. “Leads to the beach.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“I told you, I was waiting for them.”

Bullets began to chew through the office door. Wood splinters flew.

“Go!” Julian shouted. “I’ll hold them.”

“We go together!”

“Someone has to cover the hole!”

“Rock, paper, scissors,” I said.

Julian stared at me. “Are you serious?”

“I’m not leaving you, Cap. Either we both go, or we both stay.”

The door hinges groaned. A boot kicked the wood.

Julian looked at the door, then at me.

“Fine,” he said. “You first.”

I climbed down. Julian followed, pulling the rug back over the trapdoor just as the office door burst open.

We were in the dark. The air smelled of sewage and sea salt.

“This way,” Julian whispered, turning on a small tactical light.

We ran. Above us, we could hear heavy boots stomping on the floorboards.

We ran for ten minutes, splashing through shallow water. Finally, I saw light ahead. A grate.

Julian kicked it open.

We crawled out onto the sand. Venice Beach.

It was night now. The ocean was dark. The pier was lit up in the distance.

We collapsed on the sand, breathing hard.

“We made it,” I gasped.

“For now,” Julian said. He looked at the store, a few blocks away. Flashing lights surrounded it.

“They’ll track us,” I said. “My rental car. My phone.”

“Ditch the phone,” Julian said.

I threw my phone into the ocean.

“Now what?” I asked. “I have a flight tomorrow. I have a daughter waiting for a unicorn.”

Julian looked at me. “You can’t go back, Elias. You’re dead now. Just like me.”

“What?”

“They saw your face. You called it in. You are compromised. If you go home, they will kill you. And they will kill Lily to tie up the loose ends.”

I felt a cold hand squeeze my heart. “No.”

“Yes,” Julian said. “Welcome to the ghost world.”

I stood up. I looked at the ocean. I looked at the city lights.

My life was over. The barbecue on Sundays. The school runs. The quiet nights.

Gone.

Because I walked into a store for a toy.

“We have to fix this,” I said.

“Fix it?” Julian laughed bitterly. “How? We are two guys against the Deep State.”

“We have intel,” I said. “You said you found out about Chimera. Do you have proof?”

“I have a drive,” Julian patted his chest. “Encrypted. Hidden.”

“Then we use it,” I said. “We don’t run. We hunt.”

Julian looked at me. He nodded slowly.

“Vanguard,” he said.

“Vanguard,” I replied.

We walked into the darkness of the beach, two ghosts with a mission.